Saturday, 13 June 2009

The Good Shepherd [2006]

Directed by the legendary Robert De Niro, The Good Shepherd is an epic espionage movie, though very unlike most of its ilk. Through the eyes, life and personal choices of Edward Wilson – a mild mannered, quiet and intelligent man who makes the journey from being a poetry student at Yale to head of counter-intelligence at CIA, and through elaborate use of flashbacks to let us know how he became what he became, we are presented with a deglamourized picture of the murky and severely lonely world of covert operations. And in the process we are also told how OSS during World War II gradually evolved into CIA during the Cold War. The movie boasts of an all-star cast – Angelina Jolie, John Turturro, Alec Baldwin, Willian Hurt et al, and even the likes of De Niro’s old buddy Joe Pesci and De Niro himself in cameos; however the low-key approach of the script never allows them to be spectacular or to grab attention. Through exceptionally detailed in its recreation of a lost era and Matt Damon’s precision portrayal of the emotionally distant protagonist, the movie managed to go places where most cloak-and-dagger movies fail to. However, given a choice, I would pick De Niro the actor over De Niro the director on any given day.

Director: Robert De NiroGenre: Drama/Political Drama/Spy Film/EpicLanguage: EnglishCountry: US